


Cats and Candles

by sixclawsdragon



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Cats, Family Dinners, KaiShin Secret Santa 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixclawsdragon/pseuds/sixclawsdragon
Summary: Shinichi and Kaito have their parents over for dinner while everyone is in town for the holidays. It’s supposed to be a nice quiet occasion, but their cats have other ideas.
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44
Collections: dcmkkaishinevents kaishin secret santa 2020





	Cats and Candles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JadeNightTheWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeNightTheWriter/gifts).



“You agree with me, don’t you, Conyan?” Kaito coos to the cat in his arms.

“Not his name.” Shinichi says automatically, even though he’s already lost that argument. The cat responds to Conyan just as easily as Conan. Kaito had named him as a joke, but it had stuck.

Shinichi hadn’t been planning to get a pet of any sort, but shortly after the Black Organization’s downfall and Shinichi’s return to his own body and identity, he’d found the little tuxedo kitten in a box in his living room, accompanied by a note with a Kid doodle for a signature. And if Shinichi’s being honest, he had been a little lonely at first, since so many of the friends he’d made as Conan didn’t even know Shinichi. The cat had helped more than he’d expected, and it was nice to come home to a house that was a little less empty.

Of course, his house is never empty anymore. Kaito and his cat, Pandora, had moved in not too long ago, and the four of them plus Kaito’s doves in their dovecote made for a lively household.

Pandora had been Shinichi’s idea. Since Kaito giving him Conyan had helped him after his own mission was complete, he’d wanted to return the favor. When Kaitou Kid announced his retirement, Shinichi had showed up at Kaito’s door with a little orange tabby and invited himself in.

And now here they are trying to decide on Christmas plans. Kaito’s mother and Shinichi’s parents are all planning to be in town, and Shinichi isn’t thrilled by the idea of having “one big family dinner” with all three parents. He loves his parents, but they tend to be high energy in a way that Shinichi isn’t, especially his mom. Chikage is similar to Yukiko, but she has her own brand of teasing and likes to have an air of mystery. Given that the three parents are friends, Shinichi knows they’ll all play off each other endlessly. Kaito thinks it’ll be fun.

“Come on, Shinichi. Conyan wants to see his grandparents, and it’ll be so much easier to have one bigger dinner than two smaller ones.” Kaito waves Conyan’s paw at Shinichi, who sighs. It _would_ be easier to have just one dinner....

“Alright, we’ll have them all over on Friday.” He relents, and Kaito cheers. “I’ll text my parents, you can tell Chikage-san.”

The parents are delighted to hear about the group dinner, so Kaito and Shinichi plan a meal for five (plus scraps for the cats, because Shinichi is weak to their cute little faces). They divide up all the different jobs of preparing for the dinner, so each of them will be responsible for cooking some dishes and doing some of the decorating.

It all goes smoothly until Christmas Day. The house is clean and tastefully decorated, and most of the food for the night’s dinner is ready and waiting in the fridge. Shinichi is going around the house lighting candles and making sure there aren’t any cat toys laying around for the parents to trip over, and Kaito is reheating everything that needs to be served warm. 

“Uh, Shinichi?” He calls out from the kitchen, sounding troubled. “Did you take the ham out of the fridge?”

“No, why?” Shinichi heads to the kitchen with a bad feeling about Kaito’s tone of voice.

“Because if I didn’t take it out of the fridge, and _you_ didn’t take it out of the fridge...that means I never put it in the fridge last night.” Kaito looks horrified. “It was sitting on the counter to cool off after I cooked it yesterday, and I was supposed to put it in the fridge when it wasn’t hot anymore, but...I guess I didn’t.”

Kaito had wanted to cook in advance after the still-frozen turkey mishap of last year, where he hadn’t been able to finish cooking before dinner time, so he’d set aside time for the ham to thaw and to cook, and everything was just right. Until he left the ham sitting out overnight, at least. 

“There’s no way that’s good anymore, Kaito.” Shinichi announces after a quick google search to confirm it. “It probably has bacteria now.” 

“What are we going to eat for dinner, then? I have all these side dishes but no main course!” Kaito picks up the ham and plonks it down in the sink to deal with later.

“Pizza?” Shinichi opens a new browser tab on his phone and hovers over the ‘start order’ button.

“My mom is probably gonna laugh, but sure. I want pineapple on mine, like usual.” 

Shinichi makes a face but adds Kaito’s usual pineapple pizza to the order, followed by his own usual and something his parents should like.

“What should I get for Chikage-san?” He asks, and Kaito thinks about it for a moment.

“Olives and mushrooms, I guess.” 

“Okay, the order is in. It should be here before the parents arrive.” Shinichi pockets his phone and considers the crisis averted. It’s not what they’d planned, but they’ll still have plenty of other home cooked food to go with the pizza.

Of course that’s when Conyan jumps up to grab the dangling end of the garland over the fireplace, bringing it crashing down with him into the soot below. The falling garland startles him, and he takes off across the living room, leaving a trail of sooty paw prints as he goes.

“Conyan, no!” Kaito rushes to scoop the cat up before he can make a bigger mess than he already has. “I’ll go wash his paws, can you get the prints and the garland?”

“Got it.” Kaito carries Conyan off to the bathroom while Shinichi sprays cleaner on the prints and leaves it to sit while he pulls the garland out of the fireplace. It’s a little bit sooty, but it’s not too bad, so Shinichi just hangs it back where it was, tucking the ends up to prevent a repeat of this incident.

Kaito returns with an irritated Conyan, who’s displeased about the whole experience. He trots off looking offended as soon as Kaito lets him down. 

“Hopefully nothing else will happen before dinner.” Shinichi sighs as he finishes cleaning up. 

“Don’t say that, you’ll jinx it.” Kaito is only half joking.

The doorbell rings, and they both jump. Kaito snickers and goes to get the door. 

“Hey, thanks for coming so quickly, we-“ He stops, finding not the pizza delivery he’d expected, but Shinichi’s parents. “Oh, you’re early!”

“We just couldn’t wait to see you two!” Yukiko beams.

“Who did you expect us to be?” Yuusaku asks, clearly having noticed Kaito’s initial greeting.

“Actually, we had a little mishap with the ham for dinner, so we ordered pizza. I was expecting the delivery person.” Kaito explains. “But there’s still plenty of-“

“Kaito!” Shinichi yells from inside, and Kaito turns around just in time to see Pandora race past him and out the door. Shinichi is trying to smother their living room rug, which is ever so slightly on fire, with a pillow from the couch. Kaito swears.

“Hang on!” He shouts on his way to the kitchen, where he fills a large bowl with water. He rushes back in and throws the water onto the fire (and also Shinichi). Shinichi just sighs and looks mournfully at his now soggy socks. “Sorry.”

“Shin-chan!” Yukiko sweeps him up in a hug. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I bumped into the table and knocked over a candle, Pandora got scared and bolted. Did she get out?”

“I’m afraid so.” Yuusaku says. “Don’t worry, we’ll help you find-“

The doorbell rings again, and Kaito almost doesn’t want to answer it. As it turns out, he doesn’t have to. Chikage opens the door for herself and strolls in with a stack of pizza boxes on one arm and Pandora in the other.

“A delivery driver showed up while I was outside, so I went ahead and paid them, and Pandora was-“ She stops, taking in the singed rug and the four of them standing there, Shinichi still wet. “It seems I missed all the excitement.”

“Mom, you’re a hero.” Kaito plucks Pandora from her arms and kisses the top of her little cat head before setting her down on the couch. “I’ll explain everything, but first let’s get the pizzas to the kitchen before something _else_ happens.” 

“It seems like you’ve had an interesting day.” Yuusaku remarks when Chikage and Kaito have left the room. 

“Interesting is an understatement.” Shinichi says. He leans down to take off his socks, pressing them into the water on the floor to soak it up a little. “I’m going to get some new socks, and then we can eat, before my usual luck kicks in and the pizza delivery driver comes back to murder someone on top of everything else.” 

Yukiko giggles as he walks away. 

“Poor Shin-chan. You should go easy on him tonight.” She tells Yuusaku.

“Of course, dear.” He says, despite knowing that he isn’t the one with a tendency to tease their son and cajole him into shopping trips or parties. 

Shinichi returns with a new pair of socks on and a towel in hand to mop up the rest of the water. He drapes the wet towel over the coat rack by the door, and the three of them join Kaito and Chikage at the dinner table. The Kurobas have already set everything out, including the pizza. When everyone has served themselves and started eating, Yukiko turns to Kaito.

“Now, what happened to the ham? You didn’t forget to thaw it again, did you?”

“No, this year I had the opposite problem.” He explains, and she laughs.

“Don’t worry, I’ve never been very good at cooking either.”

Shinichi snorts, then attempts to disguise it as a cough. Yukiko gives him a look, but lets it slide. 

“Anyway, everything else is wonderful! I’m so glad we could all get together like this.”

“Me too.” Chikage says. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen you two especially, Yukiko!” 

“You’re still traveling too, right? We should meet up somewhere! Yuu-chan and I were just talking about visiting California in the new year, you should come!”

The two of them start planning their trip over the table, with Yuusaku offering suggestions occasionally. Shinichi feels a nudge under the table before Kaito’s hand finds his.

“Hi.” He murmurs, leaning a little closer to Kaito.

“Hey.” Kaito smiles softly at him. “Thanks for agreeing to the three parent dinner. This is nice.”

“Yeah.” Despite the chaos of the day, Shinichi feels peaceful. “It is.”


End file.
